The Hollow Planet - part four

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“It’s just monitoring and maintenance for the next nine months,” Dad added. “And we are not required for every single job except if technical issues come up.”

A party atmosphere filled the little home and the family together created the finest meal they had eaten since their arrival. They spent the rest of the day and into the evening celebrating and chatting as they had not been able to in a long time. Gwenn pushed considerations for Tyler to the side for the time being. The whole time Tatum and Pear lay in the middle of the floor smiling doggie smiles enjoying just looking from face to face.

Then it was early morning. Dad just could not sleep more for the excitement of getting underway. He came into the kitchen just as Gwenn concluded bustling about, feeding the dogs, cleaning their dishes - brewing up the tea the family made do with in the absence of coffee.

He helped himself to the hot brew and seated himself at the table. “So,” he said between sips; “tell me what you’ve been up to while your Mom and I were so busy?”

“Nothing special, until yesterday,” she said. Gwenn told in full how Tyler’s parents had come to Pi in search of their boy. She told for the first time how he came to be on Pi.

The story left Dad pondering. By the time Mom came in and scooted onto her chair, he still remained engrossed in thought. When he and Gwenn explained the situation to Mom her commonsense response was to enquire of the businesses along the streets, for somebody ought to recall a boy so different. Doppelgangers for Tyler: there were none.

Of course, they had to agree with her.

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After a good breakfast, they bicycled over to the Meekems and knocked at the door. After a good round of greeting and small talk, Dad explained the thinking on Tyler. He had them understand, his position at the rocket engine could not be left empty. Delay fixing any critical problems that arise might result in disaster. He and Jenna had discussed it before they left home and had concluded that she and Gwenn could accompany the Meekems in the quest to locate their son, and likely do as good a job.

So it was decided and Dad called in a drone, to arrive the morning following, and it delivered the searchers to that same square, where the portal from Earth once had been in operation.

The square where Gwenn had first landed on Pi looked as though it had been crushed by a fist, on the one side; whereas the other side looked nearly the same as before. The railroad track, with its twisted rails, lolled, grotesquely, beside the unscathed depot, making the ticket clerk unemployed and the building vacant. Gwenn insisted that they go in each business where she had first ventured on her arrival, having as she did a fond memory of the restaurant where she had received a free meal and expecting to again be thoughtfully received by the staff. She believed Mom would love the waitress, with the long black wings, straight black head hair, face with eagle-like beak, and long feathered legs, ending with boot shod feet.

Mom and the Meekems, came in the establishment, craning their heads at the high ceiling, and looking about for the proprietors. There were no patrons at the tables. Yet the food odors stirred their appetites. They selected a table and were in the act of being

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seated, when the waitress swooped out of the kitchen area and hovered before them, with an order pad in hand. Thrilled and surprised, they eagerly read the menu offerings that were posted on the wall, above a long counter.

Mr. Meekem asked for the pulled prok. The women ordered BLQ’s. They were fascinated by the way the waitress came to the floor and walked to fetch some tea, how her wings alternately fluttered at each step. When she poured up the drinks, George asked her if she recalled an Earth boy coming here, and he tried to explain the circumstances that might have brought him in. She said she remembered Gwenn and the free sandwich, but that Tyler had not come in.

Next, they went the length of the street, first on the right side, then back to the point of origin on the other side. The second street yielded two sightings. Then, nothing. They searched all of the streets he might have been on, including the wrecked ones, with no further leads.

At last, the tired searchers returned to the drone, after summoning the pilot, who had spent his day fraternizing with other pilots. “We’ve only just begun,“ George Meekem announced.“

They would resume the search on the morrow.

The following day was overcast; threatening, even. The little band persevered. George suggested they venture a little beyond the city, by going out from the one street where two clerks had recalled speaking with Tyler. That particular street had been home to a number of shops, now closed, although a handful remained in business. When thR

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sidewalk ended, the street transformed into a narrow lane, after a few minutes walking, and there was an information sign at the beginning, reading: Suspended Bridge Ahead.

There had indeed been such a bridge, as they found out when they came on the wreckage of it and saw that it had once crossed over a deep chasm. At the same time, a sudden lightning storm wreaked havoc, harbingering a vicious pelting of hail, that saw the unfortunates scrambling for cover.

They ducked under a portion of bridge jutting up at the crest, to form a deep hollow, with the opposite end forming a mouth at the dropoff. It was the briefest of storms, allowing them to exit almost unscathed. Strong wind gusts caused the trees to sway. It was in the course of one tree bending, leaning near to breaking, Jenna saw the cupola. She explained that she recognized it by a reading of Dad’s novel. “The Goop Bird Monastery,” she exclaimed. “It’s a hunch, only. But, we’ve got to go over there.”

“Why, what is it?” George asked. “I don’t see a thing over that way.”

“Come,” Mom answered. “I can try to explain on the way to it.”

Gwenn was ready to obey. “But, Mom, where is the trail?”

“The Goop Birds don’t make trails,” she replied. “The Goop Birds, unlike the Birdpeople, are more bird than human. So, mostly, they fly to get to places. And they like their solitude.”

Emma was not fond of the notion. “Why go through so much hardship? How would Tyler have gotten himself connected with these Goop Birds?”

George voiced support for his wife. “I’m afraid that if you can’t make a case for

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doing this I am going to refuse to go.”

Mom was patient. “These birds are psychic. Because of your connection with him, they can tell us almost anything, if Tyler is anywhere within their range. Why not try? As of now we haven’t a clue to go on.”

George remained hesitant.

“Tell you what,” Mom offered. “You make camp, here, you and Emma, and Gwenn and I will go to the monastery.”

George said he knew his wife well enough to read when she needed to rest. He assisted her to the bridge wreckage to set about making a comfortable camp. “See you later,“ he said.

Mom set out, immediately, not being one to procrastinate, and Gwenn double-stepped to catch up.

Gwenn had an early premonition that the Goop Birds were from Dad’s spiritual leanings, although it was not a topic he was in a habit of discussing before her. That was because, as he had informed her a few years back, the spiritual aspects of life are much too personal to be taught by those in authority. It is for her to nurture that within herself that satisfies the primal urge to be whole. When she questioned the concept he said she would come to understand with maturity and age.

The Goop Bird sentries spotted them very quickly. One ascended through the trees to drop down right before them. The sentry stood, perhaps six feet tall, black as a raven, so heavily feathered as to be hidden deep inside. Its face and hand-wing components were

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all she actually saw. It had a buzzard-like countenance, with two malevolent bulging eyeballs. This was the final straw. Gwenn was no longer surprised, by anything she saw on this oddball planet and she almost cracked a grin aimed at her absent Dad.

The sentry looked Jenna over repeatedly. “You are seeking help. You would never come here were it not so.”

“Yes. We are desperately searching for a boy. Do you think the priests will hear us?”

“You will not be turned away. Continue on.”

The sentry swept its wings in a violently downward motion that propelled it above the tree line in a matter of seconds. Gwenn half expected the dense growth to thin somewhat, the nearer they came to the monastery but it never varied. When at last they burst through the foliage they fell into a courtyard, for this was a complex with no need of a wall or fences. They thought that a Goop Bird suddenly dropping before them had to be the sentry from that earlier encounter. It motioned them to follow toward the central building, the one with a cupola on top. It was gold in color, although the sides appeared to be of mud-laced thatch.

As the sentry lurch-walked before them, Gwenn had an impression that it had unparalleled strength, even though it exuded a deep peacefulness. They saw birds, working in garden plots. Others seemed in meditative states, oblivious to their passing. They were led inside through a doorless archway and motioned to wait in a huge vaulted room, while the Goop Bird went into a hall out of sight. It returned, minutes later,

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signaling them to go along through that hall to the end.

The floors were made up of straw over the plain dirt, but the walls were murals of inlaid tile, celebrating flight and peaceful habits. The inner hall was a somber room, populated with a few dozens of the elders, all training their orbs on these strangers come in their midst. The oldest of the Goop Birds had stirred from a position on a nest and come forward. “I am Alidz,” she said in a guttural voice. “I have the power you seek to employ. It is a lost art, once I pass on. You. You are from a world separate from Pi. Already, I read your character. What information is it you seek?”

Mom pressed Gwenn forward. “We want to find a lost boy. I have never met the boy, so I don’t think I can help. My daughter is a best friend of his.”

“I am prepared to read her. Please be aware, there may be after-effects that make your daughter uncomfortable for an unpredictable length of time.”

She turned her attention to Gwenn. “You are willing?”

Gwenn nodded.

The bird moved awkwardly in to confront the girl, training her protruding dead-looking eyes on Gwenn‘s forehead, wrapping her fingers tightly about Gwenn’s wrist. Gwenn cringed but willed herself to be still, despite the feeling of something creeping inside her arm out of Alidz‘s fingers, crawling upward, inside her torso, like a rapidly spreading vine, with tendrils spreading throughout her blood and bones, until invading the deepest recess of her being.

Consciousness fled, until Alidz ceased to probe, then returned an increment at a

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time. As the blackness oozed from Gwenn’s brain, dimly aware of the final tendrils that withdrew, she stared vacantly as the bird conversed with Mom. After thanking Alidz profusely, Mom led Gwenn from the temple and back into the woods. The dear saw birds where there were none, swooping in whiteness, ducking when some came too close.

She continually paused, yearning to soar among the birds. They were able to rejoin the Meekems, both of whom had fallen fast asleep. Mom settled to wait, but Gwenn went away from the group to stand above the chasm looking over the vastness, feeling she could soar above it all if she just gave herself a little boost by jumping off and spreading her wings. And, then - She went flying. The wind rushed past her face as the great black Goop Birds circled about. They gathered in a group to make up a vee that would race over the woods and beyond. She fluttered and flapped her wings without catching up to them. In moments all were gone. Then she felt her mother, hugging as ever tightly she could. In the following instant, Gwenn’s mind became pristine clear. The effect of Alidz’s probe was no more.

“One more instant, you would have plunged into the chasm for over a hundred feet,” Mom said.

She dragged her daughter to safety and all but pushed her down to get her to sit.

“Mom, it’s okay,” Gwenn protested. “I’m all right now.”

The Meekems wakened at the sounds they made. “Sorry,” George said. “We were tired and sat still too long.”

“I have a lead on Tyler,” Mom said, while still casting keen looks at Gwenn. “We

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have got to return to town and look beyond the rubble we’ve observed. I don’t wish to alarm you but he may be in trouble.”

Emma, willing to soldier on, took determined steps to get back on the way to town. The rest took note and joined her. The hard trek across the damaged terrain had been mitigated by a trail locals established on the same day Pi had been scored by its encounter with Earth. By the time our friends emerged on the other side, they had obtained a full view of one of the hardened bunkers that were being frantically thrown together as a means to protect much of the population from the crunch, when Pi would assault Mars.

Mom took them onto a country lane that fronted several farm tracts. A sprinkling of houses and barns dotted the landscape. One piece of ground lay unplanted, unfurrowed, weed overgrown. The crumbling gate had been left wide open, likely left like that for years. The barn had lost some beams, resulting in a partially collapsed wall and a deeply sagging roof. The house alone, of all that populated the so-called farm, appeared intact. The intruders gathered before this inglorious structure, wondering not just if, but, why anybody lived in it. Before they gathered the resolve to move on it they heard the door’s hinges creak.

The face of a juvenile Birdpeople poked through the narrowly cracked opening then the door quickly slammed shut. It was enough to move the group forward. George moved in and knocked very loudly. They waited until the same face appeared, wide-eyed and fearful. “They are not here,” he said. “I am home alone.”

“Who, other than yourself, lives here?” George asked gently.

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The boy became cagey. “Why do you want to know?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’m looking for a lost child. He’s not of the Birdpeople, but I suspect he may be in their company. What do you say?”

The boy spoke as he began closing the door. “Wait ‘til they get home,” he said.

George cast a quizzical look at his companions. “What do you make of that?”

“We should wait out here,” Mom asserted, with Emma and Gwenn nodding along.

Gwenn wondered why the boy had not denied knowledge of Tyler unless he knew something about him. She placed herself on the porch swing to rest up and to think about what they would do if they found Tyler but could not get him back. Emma joined her and they chatted about Tyler, while Mom and George walked around the yard, wondering why the farm was so in disrepair.

In time they heard a battered drone approach the farmhouse, and heard it prematurely drop to the ground in the final moments of flight. They saw a middle-aged Birdpeople man hop out, followed by a gang of youngsters. The man repeatedly kicked the drone while yelling in the archaic Birdpeople language. After exhausting his rage, he marshaled the children, who all wore cloaks with cowls. He walked them, eyes to the ground, into the house, before acknowledging the four earthlings waiting on the porch.

He was a striking figure of a Birdpeople person, with a red feathered head, a parrot-like beak, and an athletic physic. His green eyes sharply looked the people over, as he stood with his feather backed hands on his hips. He stared impassively, saying nothing.

“Well, I will get to the point, then,” George began, after an uncomfortable lull. “I

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am looking for my son. I was directed, by the Goop Birds to this very house. Mr. -?”

“Nepo Rike. I do have an Earth boy here. But, he is bound to me by law for another six years. He has proven an invaluable asset to my operation. Therefore I could not part with him an instant sooner than the six years.”

George was impatient but forced himself to act respectfully, as he hoped Rike might be reasoned with. “Bound, in what way? For what reason?”

Rike sighed in an indication he did not like explaining himself to people. But here they all were so he offered the following, truthful, explanation: “Firstly, I contract public works projects. The local authorities have granted to me guardianship over as many unattached children as come my way as helpers. Some are orphans. Some are simply not wanted by their parents. I house and feed them and put away a small part of earnings generated from their efforts so that once they leave me they have a stake to finance them until they can become situated. The Earth boy will not be considered a free adult for another six years. At the end, I can turn him over to you, if you still want him.”

Emma, Mom, and Gwenn started to protest, but George signaled them to be still and allow him to handle this situation. “Can you let me speak with my son?” he asked.

“Of course,” Rike said.

His voice boomed a command that Tyler be sent outside, alone of the children.

Clueless Tyler came into the sun and when instructed lifted his cowl. On seeing his parents and his best friend he feigned nonchalance. He went to them, face impassive. Suddenly he and his parents were hugging and his mother‘s kisses went all over his face.

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Gwenn stood back to watch, growing misty-eyed, awaiting her turn. Mrs. Meekum paused to look for her. She motioned to urge her to get in on the hugs. Gwenn rushed to join in, squealing, “Tyler. I missed you.”

Their time together was all too short. After a few minutes, Rike made it known he was ready to end the reunion. George explained to Tyler and Emma that he would explore all the legal ways to end this mad relationship with Nepo Rike. In the meantime, Tyler had no choice other than to stay here and continue to obey the man. There were a few hugs more until Tyler, returned to the cowl, made his way sadly into the house.

When Gwenn’s Dad heard the story, he was incensed. “I know of Rike. The man’s a cruel taskmaster,” he said. “Issak could possibly help us with this, but the issue‘s local. He might not hold any sway with these folks.”

Issues with the thrusters kept Issak from considering Tyler‘s case. He sent the Meekems his apology, via Gwenn’s Dad, and that was the end of it. Next, George and Emma made a round of entreating local officials, with no success. So they sought and found an apartment to rent as near as possible to Nepo Rike’s dilapidated farm. They knew it to be impossible even to view their son but they could be nearby.

Gwenn was forced to resume her life of getting schooled at home and riding her bike around the settlement from time to time. She had long since despaired of having a normal life, ever again.

And then another month’s passing left seven and a half until what Dad called Impact Day. It was early evening, with the sun resting directly on the white horizon, and

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Gwenn rose from reading to answer a frantic knocking at the door. She had been awaiting Mom and Dad but found herself facing George and Emma, who fairly danced with excitement. Mom and Dad chanced to ride up on bikes, right after them.

“We have fantastic news,” George began -

“We can have Tyler back,” Emma gushed.

George put up a hand, flat, with palm out. “But, he said, “there’s a bit of sad news goes with it.”

That put a damper on the high spirits, for the moment.

“How bad could it be?” Dad said cautiously. He quit speaking then, for George looked to be genuinely disturbed.

“Well,” George began. “Nepo Rike has been caught invading the Goop Bird nesting compound. Turns out he swiped two of their eggs last season. When he tried it again, they were ready with a trap. A net. The kids told authorities they saw Rike when two Goop Birds picked him up with the net that caught him and flew off over the forest. He won’t be coming back.” He sighed. “ I arranged with officials to regain custody of Tyler.”

Everyone became joyful and began congratulating the Meekems, but George told them to wait for the full story to be told. “I agreed to become obligated for the care of the remaining youngsters. In short, we become parents to twenty-four youngsters, only one of which is our own or even human.”

George then entreated Dad to help him move the children into some of the empty

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housing, here on the white plain. “My money is rapidly depleting,” he added. “Without housing they won’t grant custody.”

Dad assured George it would be done. “I am taking it on myself to assign two of the homes to you and I, for one, will gladly help you to care for so many young needs. Maybe not with time, but with material goods.”

It was quickly settled and George left by himself in Rike’s own drone, promising he would return shortly beyond nightfall. The antiquated vessel seemed unstable, to the viewers from the ground, but it had seen a faithful service and it soared away into the distance.

Almost immediately, Mom and Emma began making plans for the children, with Gwenn following along, hoping to be helpful. One of the first moves, the women had to find out if the neighborhood school could accommodate an influx of two dozen kids. Then, extra beds and furniture. Some of the plans were contingent on if they were dealing with just boys. “It would have been nice to be informed if any are girls,” Mom complained.

By the time the children arrived in the drone, the night was gently creeping in. Cloaks and cowls gone, the kids presented themselves in clean new clothes, each one beaming, and as curious about this new family they were getting inducted into as the family about them. Many had to have hugs when they were introduced toEmma..

Tyler stood slightly taller than these young Birdpeople. He seemed popular among them and in fact had a real fan in Fweeze, the shortest, sprightliest, of the five girls. Her

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gentle features and innocent manner endeared her to Tyler, so he didn’t mind she followed him around. Her large eyes and budgie-like beak made her all the cuter. She ran everywhere in an awkward scurrying manner that made some consider that she ought to have been hatched as a real bird. And she did not mind Tyler being loyal to Gwenn, his long separated from best friend.

For now, the grownups must have order and they divided the children into two groups, all except Tyler. The groups were sorted by gender: five girls and seven boys. They were assigned their own beds and encouraged to pick a regular chair at any of three long tables. There would be no school for now, as the school had no room and not enough staff to handle them. They all were in a habit of obeying without question, which was good, initially, but their new freedom was certain to erode that fairly quickly.

They were reckless days when the children all had bikes and they rode the white plain for miles, racing and playing games. The deliriously happy dogs ran alongside. It was like the glorious vacation days of summer on Earth when a child had no cares and could run at will.

As the days counted down, the completed bunkers were set up for business, with an eye to the rapidly approaching contact day. There were none built on the plain, for the plain was to be the central point of impact and soon would be no more. They were assigned to a location near Pythonville and called to undergo drills. The structures were being stocked for the long haul, as nobody knew for sure what would be left once the crash was over.

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In the first week of the final month, Gwenn’s parents, Issak Spyng, Wilfred Combs, and others attended a ceremony at the bunker. It was solemn, in that it cautioned the people to expect the loss of life and property. Issak placed the full blame on himself, for bringing about such trepidation and suffering. He also praised the effort, in light of knowing the scientists that created Pi were almost certainly about to terminate the experiment, on the day his effort sent their planet into the real universe. He had, in effect, given the surviving population their one chance at life. There was more, but Gwenn and Tyler slipped outside, to wait for it to be over.

They found a soft knoll to sit upon, enjoying a soft breeze. “You never did tell me how you got by Mr. Combs, to transport yourself to Pi,” she said.

“Oh. It was simple. I out-maneuvered clumsy Mr. Combs and ran down the stairs. When I reached the door I opened it and shut it, loudly. But, instead of leaving, I stayed in the house and hid in a closet. I waited a long time and when I went upstairs again, there was nobody in there to stop me from transporting myself.”

Gwenn gave a look of satisfaction. “I knew it was like that.”

“I’m looking forward to when we get all of this done so we can go home and get out lives back,” Tyler said. “I’m just not adventurous at all.”

“Don’t you know?” Gwenn said. “We’re not allowed on Earth anymore. Not Mom and Dad anyway. I guess when you leave it will be goodbye.”

Tyler looked sad. “I don’t want to lose the best friend I ever had,” he said.

They got up and moved around.

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They walked along the outer walls of the bunker. It was massively long and had no square edges. It was. It was, in fact, a city. The land for about a mile had been bulldozed clean, to minimize flying debris. A chemical had soaked the soil in a permanent way to hold down dust. Instead of filtering in outside air, they had been informed that the bunker would recycle the air within, as with the water. Plus, there were plants and animals, to ensure these species did not go extinct. Both remarked that it was like finding a Noah’s Ark. Gwenn secretly wondered how many other people and animals were being sentenced to face the big event from on the outside, for lack of room. Lots, she imagined.

“But what are they going to do?” she asked her father, speaking later of the same dilemma.

Dad, impassive, looked away. “Given the time frame and the resources available,” he finally responded, “we’ve done a spectacular job. There are thirty bunkers just like ours, scattered about the planet. The rest of the population has been advised all along that they have to devise plans on their own. I am hopeful they have done so.”

He looked as though his shoulders held up the world, but could lose the struggle to keep it there.

She understood. But understanding could not make it feel better. Getting chosen to harbor in a bunker, based on her relationship to her parents, just seemed wrong. When she confided to Tyler and the Birdpeople kids, they understood the injustice. Indeed, none considered themselves worthy. What could they do? Apparently, nothing.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

As hours counted down, school was suspended to give the children a bit of freedom in advance of long confinement. They scattered about the neighborhood and soon began discovering the circle of Gwenn, Tyler, and Birdpeople. As quickly as they met, they became friends. After that they looked like invading hordes from a “B” Hollywood movie, sweeping on bikes across the plain. In the early dusk, they had a favorite spot to lounge about to watch Mars grow larger in the sky every day.

One morning the people were solemnly assembled. “Friends,” Issak Spyng said, as he stood before them, looking thoroughly humbled to Gwenn for the first time ever, “we are about to make up a caravan and go to the bunker. Once anyone is allowed in, there will be no leaving, until the leaders allow that it is safe enough to be outside again. If anyone has any issues, now is the time to voice them. There will be little in the way of democracy in there. Please be patient with us and we will get through this together.”

Spyng always made his speeches short. Gwenn thought he made eye contact with her as he stepped down. She thought he was a great man, after the cut of George Washington. The crowd was submissive, ready to be led, hoping mightily these scientists

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knew what they were doing.

They traveled in a line of drones in the midday sky, landing in a sheltered area outside of the bulldozed zone and were ferried to the bunker. Each group that stepped down before the entrance was encouraged to walk inside and wait. Dad, Issak, Mom, Wilford, the Meekems, Gwenn and others came in last, prepared to shut the door behind them right away.

Armed cyborgs met them as they moved into the bunker’s confines. General Jod Krobber, the supreme commander during the Cyborg-Birdpeople War, commanded these troops. He had been in the process of sorting the cyborgs from the Birdpeople when he recognized Issak at the entrance. “Welcome to the coup, Mr. President,” he said, in mock jocularity. “I have taken this opportunity to settle the score from the late war. I command you to stand aside, as we cull all of the Birdpeople and seal them outside.”

Issak disregarded the weapons, almost daring these men to shoot. “Jod,” he said sternly. “tell the soldiers to stand down. We don’t have the time to negotiate this sort of business. End this now. There will be no repercussions if you go.”

The general nodded to his men as a signal to disable their considered former leader. Four rushed forward to seize him. During a brief struggle, Spyng was knocked unconscious. The other cyborgs then swept out the Birdpeople. Gwenn and Tyler had made their way to support their Birdpeople friends and were swept out with them. Mom saw Gwenn and Tyler in the tide of those exiting but was too late to voice a protest. As she turned to Dad to let him know, the opening was sliding closed and then secured. The

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bunker had been sealed for the duration.

At first, all of the Birdpeople congregated on the cleared land surrounding the bunker to discuss their options. Making up two arguing factions, they haggled, until the greater group took to the drones and headed east. The second group turned north. The Earth kids and their friends had wandered away to the side, during that confrontation and they went off on their own. They looked to Gwenn, who said, “I know something to try.”

Tyler trusted Gwenn as the toughest person he had ever known. “You do?”

“We need a drone,” she said. “Do you think you could pilot one, or should I try?”

“I can,” Tyler volunteered. “They are not so different from automobiles.”

“If anybody can help us out, I bet it’s the Goop Birds. That‘s where we should go”

Tyler pondered as he looked at the faces of Fweeze and the others, who obviously had nothing better to offer. Tyler gave in, for the same reason.

They piled in one of the larger models, then fidgeted until Tyler managed to get the machine airborne. “Help guide me,” he said.

Gwenn hoped the Goop Birds would not be too shocked when they trooped in and asked for asylum. She watched for features of the compound, then helped Tyler select a landing spot. The youngsters entered the forest from the same point Gwenn’s Mom had led them in before. They quickly began to notice that since the last visit the Goop Birds had woven a variety of materials among the trees, making up a ceiling about a hundred feet off the ground. It soon became apparent that the entire forest surrounding the compound had been woven to protect from approaching catastrophe. After they traipsed

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onto the floor, the incline kept rising until the children found themselves hiking far above the forest floor. The weaving took on the characteristics of a gigantic cocoon. They had as yet seen no birds. Nevertheless, Gwenn felt certain their approach had been detected.

By the time they came on the central compound, several birds had come to escort them. The birds said not a word, but shuffled in from recesses along the way and fell in beside them. The children of the Birdpeople were thrilled and fascinated, for they had never been informed about Goop Birds. Two of the smallest youngsters held bird’s hands, looking happy and relieved to feel safe.

The original compound had been separately ‘cocooned,’ for the duration, but a reasonable facsimile rested in the structure above it. It was in this place they were compelled to wait until Alidz and company came slowly and deliberately to greet these refugees. Her placid buzzard-similar face instilled confidence in the assemblage. Her bulging grey eyes went from Gwenn to Tyler a few times, the only ever acknowledgment that Tyler had been saved due to her psychic intervention. “You are blessed,” she said.

She waved a hand in a motion that encompassed them all. “We have room for you. Welcome. Welcome.”

If eyes could see the impending event from a vantage point in outer space, they would note how the white side of Pi was maneuvered to crash into a range of mountains, with peaks to punch holes in the white, allowing the Pi surface to crumble and cave in, with minimum slowing down, as the hollow planet swallowed up the lesser to make of the two a single planet. The trick was to time the speed and impact so cleverly that Pi

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ceased to travel at just the right point to let Mars rest easily inside. There would be a vast dent in Pi, where the surface would actually be mountains and plains of Mars and a portion of polar cap with ice.

The shock to Pi brought on quakes and eruptions of massive proportions all over the planet. One of the thirteen bunkers was flipped. Another scooted many yards across the ground. It is probable species of plant and animal went extinct. Untold numbers of cyborgs and Birdpeople were obliterated by the destructive force of the collision. A blessing to the new planet, the Martian atmosphere over the open terrain became supplanted by Pi air, meaning the Martian plains could safely be terraformed in rather quick order. Finally, the new position from the sun meant the daily temperatures of Pi would be dropping, presenting new challenges to keep the people alive.

Most immediately, the settling down of billions of tons of dust in the air had to take place before the people could dig themselves out.

The children had been comfortably ensconced in a nest during the event. They felt the motion and faintly heard the sounds of destruction from the outside. As Gwenn waited in the darkness she came to accept for the first time how her parents and others, including Issak Spyng and Wilfred Combs, had become the greatest criminals against the lives of whole planets the universe might ever know. They were deserving of expulsion from societies and further history. She was grateful they all would merely be exiled to the plains that were original Mars, where they would eke an existence with little to no help from Pi and Earth.

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She could not guess how long the wedding of these planets went on. She slept eventually. When she awakened, it was over. She questioned a friendly Goop Bird about when anyone could venture outside. The Goop Bird did not know. “Nobody knows for certain.”

Gwenn believed that the people of both Earth and Pi-Mars were going to prevail and would fashion new, greater, societies. Sadly, the cyborgs and the Birdpeople were destined to continue feuding. Gwenn would work really hard to help with the settling of the bleak Martian landscape. Bravely, she looked forward to the future.